As is common knowledge, the forces of the Kingdom of Swords were no match for our clone army. As countless Sword Knights fell beneath the seemingly inexhaustible clones, the war finally came to a close. As is common knowledge in the Kingdom of Pentacles, we have several golden statues in honor of House Pentacles but not a single memorial. Thanks to the clones, no subject of our kingdom lost a life to that war. And for the time being, it seemed that the story of the mystic had reached its conclusion…at least as far as the subjects of the Kingdom of Pentacles were concerned. She was rumored to have been rewarded handsomely for her efforts and ingenuity. While her assistant remained a fixture in the court of our gilded king, the mystic herself vanished shortly after the war. Admittedly, it struck the people as strange that she disappeared so mysteriously without so much as a parade honoring her contributions to our victory. Yet, as the days grew even more prosperous, the questions faded. Though we lived in the glow of the mystic’s brilliance, she was out of sight and soon out of mind.

~

Unknown to the people of the Pentacles Kingdom, the Nine of Pentacles finds the mystic long gone from their realm, retired into other worlds accessible to her through magical means. As briefly mentioned previously, the mystic had been travelling via magically induced portal to a moon where she cultivated the pumpkins that allowed her to produce her scarecrows. The Nine of Pentacles finds the mystic reveling in her private celebration of her accomplishment. Her robes blow in a breeze that separates her surroundings into a sunny day and the moonscape that provides her enchanted jack-o’-lanterns. Her robes have shifted from the black uncertainty and darkness of her path to autumnal golds, referencing the harvest and wealth. The ground is festooned with a plethora of pumpkins and nine pentacles are caught up in the mystic’s ribbons all signifying the bountiful abundance that rewards the mystic upon the completion of her projects.

Honoring Success with the Nine of Pentacles

The Nine of Pentacles is a card celebrating material success and a toast to a job well done from life itself. However, this is not a success passed to our protagonist externally. She no longer needs validation from House Swords or House Pentacles as she has in the past. She doesn’t even need her assistant in this private parade of accomplishment. Instead, the mystic now glows from within, exuding a confidence that only comes through overcoming the obstacles of a material world.

Solitude in Paradise

Two of her clones prepare a glass of pink strawberry champagne (echoed in the pentacles of the border) as the mystic’s hand languidly awaits the glass stem. Yet, the mystic is virtually alone in her paradise, reflecting upon her immense accomplishments which also resound in the border with the face of a clone to the left, a burlap-hooded scarecrow at the top, and the golden mask of the Knight of Pentacles to the right. Here she can bask in her unique gifts and all that she’s wrought.

An End and a Beginning

Initially, I was saddened that the mystic reaps her rewards in her autumnal paradise without her dear assistant but this card shows a sense of self-satisfaction and self-worth that could not accommodate the presence of her apprentice. As the Ten of Pentacles will go on to illustrate, the mystic would never see her assistant again…yet in another way she would.